


Clockwork Humans

by VinHampton



Category: Original Work, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Automaton, Clockwork - Freeform, Established Relationship, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Existentialism, Holland Park, London, Nostalgia, Original Character(s), POV Female Character, POV Original Character, POV Third Person, Purpose, Russia, Smoking, Snow, Uncanny Valley, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 04:04:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1730498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VinHampton/pseuds/VinHampton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, it's hard to be sure if you're real.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clockwork Humans

There is a humming in the air. And it's not the people as they walk along, like clockwork humans. It's not the cars, not the planes. It's something beyond that, before that. There's a hum of trees growing their leaves, of bees travelling from flower to flower. Even in the city and amid the stone, there is life. There is spring - in its very name, the idea of moving forward, spreading, growing, blooming. 

Vin cannot hear it, because the sound in her head is too loud, telling her she's not a part of this, but apart from this. Her heart remembers the joy of a full belly; her mind remembers the image of -nothing- on a screen. Nothing but herself, and the numbers which make her up. Vin wonders if this is what loneliness is, or if she's just always been lonely. 

She has a sudden acute yearning for the snow. For snowscapes where everything is suspended and nothing ever springs forward. She misses Russia - not her life there, but the idea of it. She misses Ivan, and the hearths of his eyes. And as quickly as she misses him, she hates him again. 

Holland Park is green and pink and blue and red and yellow and the breeze is pregnant with pollen. The streets are filled with people who push past, or who stop and block the way. Vin feels invisible, or unsubstantial, which is the way she usually feels. Small, and tired. The walk has made her tired and her heart beats a little faster in her chest; hard enough for her to be aware of it. She fantasises about making it stop. It makes her chest tighten and hurt. She stops and takes a few deep breaths. Why do all her thoughts go that way now? There has to be more than this. 

She finds an empty bench to sit on and lights another cigarette. It occurs to Vin that she feels like an automaton - a living doll. And then, for a moment, she seriously entertains the idea that she might really be an automaton. After all, how has she ever existed but to serve as a functional instrument? A pretty little girl to play the piano, a pretty young wife, a pretty prostitute. She wonders whether dolls have feelings, and then tries to remember whether she's ever really had feelings, or whether she only went through the motions. It is hard to remember feelings when you feel numb. 

Like clockwork, the people around her push prams, or kiss, or talk into their phones. It is hard to imagine them all having lives and feelings too. Maybe feelings are, like religions, made up. They are all chemical, after all. All reactions and numbers, and how is that different to numbers on a page? Or numbers beside a hollow womb on a black screen?

The cigarette tastes good and dangerous. And what better way to break one's function than through self-destruction? She considers calling somebody and asking for a bag of forgetfulness - sweetness she could inject to make her forget, and to make the thoughts become quiet. But the sense of responsibility - of function - is too strong. 

She knows she needs something, but she doesn't know what that something is. It's not a child - or it cannot be a child. "I only agreed to one specimen," he had said. Those were not the words of a man excited by the prospect of fatherhood. They were the words of a man who was trying to appease. Appease her. What a strange concept, that she might be worth appeasing. 

She misses her work, but it cannot be that either. The Queen is segregated and her role is purely functional. 

But a stray thought moves into her mind and she cannot shake it off, until it has grown so big that it is impossible to ignore, and before she can stop to evaluate it, she is in a taxi, going to Vauxhall Cross, to the large building where she'd worked last year until... well, until everything fell apart. 

The reception is large and slick and she asks to see the man she had worked for last year. 

"But you don't have an appointment."  
"Mycroft Holmes sent me."

Sherlock was right: his brothers name unlocked doors. 

And so here she is, in an office in MI5, asking for her old job back. Filling out an evaluation form. Using the name of the man who'd ruptured her life to try and stitch it all back together. 

And Sherlock, well... he would have to learn to accept it.  
Because the other option would be more painful by far. And she is not her mother. No, she will never be her mother.


End file.
